In a storage area network (SAN), a SAN management application monitors and manages manageable entities in the SAN. The manageable entities include storage arrays, connectivity devices, and hosts. Typically, software components known as agents execute on the hosts for gathering, reporting, and monitoring the manageable entities in the SAN. The manageable entities are responsive to the agents for reporting various status metrics back to the agents and receiving control information from the agents. A management server executes the SAN management application, and oversees the agents. The management server is responsive to a console having a graphical user interface (GUI) for receiving and displaying operator parameters with a SAN operator. The SAN operators, or users, issue commands for directing various services available via the management application.
The modern trend of increasing privacy and security awareness of electronic storage mediums drives a need for centralized repositories of sensitive data to monitor and track access. In a storage area network, users require timely unhindered access to requested data, yet security expectations place the onus on network service providers to prevent dissemination of sensitive information to unauthorized parties. Accordingly, storage area network (SAN) operators strive to audit and monitor user activity in a SAN. In a large SAN, however, many users may have multiple levels and/or designations of appropriate access to SAN resident data. Often, privilege and access control mechanisms are employed to associate users to particular data sources and prevent access to inappropriate or disallowed data.